Fiddling

Definition: Fiddling

Fiddling

Adjective

1. (informal terms) small and of little importance; "a fiddling sum of money"; "a footling gesture"; "our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war"; "a little (or small) matter"; "Mickey Mouse regulations"; "a dispute over niggling details"; "limited to petty enterprises"; "piffling efforts"; "giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction".

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "fiddling" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1601. (references)

Synonyms: Fiddling

Crosswords: Fiddling

Your mother left me here to mind you, And I'm doing exactly what I bleedin' well want to, Fiddling about, fiddling about, fiddle about (Tommy; writing credit: Pete Townshend; Ken Russell)

The Fiddling Fool (1923)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Books

• Old Time Fiddling Across America Book/CD Set (reference)

• The Devil's Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling (Vanderbilt/Country Music Foundation Press) (reference)

• Twin Fiddling (reference)

• Advanced Fiddling (reference)

• Contest Fiddling (reference)

  (more book examples)

Theater & Movies

• Mark O'Connor: Contest Fiddling - Championship Style (reference)

  (more DVD examples; more video examples)

Music

• Fiddling with Tradition (reference)

• Still Fiddling (reference)

  (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Fiddling Bill Hensley (left), and others at the Mountain Music Festival, Asheville, North Carolina. Credit: Library of Congress.

Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Asa Helton with fiddle, Fiddling Bill Hensley playing fiddle, at the Mountain Music Festival, Asheville, North Carolina. Credit: Library of Congress.

Asa Helton and Fiddling Bill Hensley playing fiddle, unidentified woman in foreground, at the Mountain Music Festival, Asheville, North Carolina. Credit: Library of Congress.

Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Ending with "fiddling": a-fiddling, disk-fiddling, still-fiddling.

Albanian

fare pa rëndësi (fiddle-faddle), i pavlerë (bad, barren, base, catchpenny, chaffy, cheap, crummy, dud, expendable, footling, frivolous, futile, jejune, measly, nugatory, paltry, peddling, tawdry, threepenny, trashy, vain, valueless, worthless), bosh (bare, bladdery, blank, empty, gassy, hollow, hot air, idle, inane, milk and water, open, thin, trifling, unoccupied, vacant, vacuous, void, white). (various references)

Arabic 

‏ليس له أهمية (much, tinpot), ‏تافه (banal, commonplace, contemptible, crummy, fade, flat, foolish, footling, fractional, frivolous, frothy, good for nothing, inane, inconsiderable, insignificant, junk, light, lilliputian, little, lowbrow, measly, minute, naught, negligible, niggling, nonsensical, nugatory, null, paltry, pedestrian, petty, piddling, pimping, piteous, pitiable, platitudinous, pointless, puny, ridiculous, run of the mill, silly, slight, slim, small time, smelly, stupid, trifle, trifling, trite, trivial, trumpery, two a penny, two bit, twopenny-halfpenny, unimportant, unsavory, unsavoury, unworthy, vain, valueless, vapid, vile, worthless). (various references)

Bulgarian 

който стърже на цигулка, който си пилее времето, незначителен (cheap, dinky, fractional, frivolous, immaterial, imperceptible, inappreciable, inconsiderable, inessential, inglorious, insignificant, least, little, mean, minor, minute, negligible, niggling, nominal, noteless, nugatory, obscure, one horse, outside, paltry, peddling, pettifogging, petty, picayune, piddling, piffling, pimping, pokey, poky, poor, potty, puerile, pygmy, rabbity, scrubby, slight, small, small time, subfusc, tenuous, third class, tiddly, trifling, trivial, two-by-four, twopenny-halfpenny, unconsidered, unimportant). (various references)

Chinese 

鬼混 (Fiddled). (various references)

Czech

malièký (diminutival, diminutive, dinky, little, midget, minikin, minute, puny, wee). (various references)

French

futile, sans importance. (various references)

German

fiedelnd. (various references)

Greek 

ασήμαντοσ (immaterial, inconsequential, insignificant, minor, negligible, niggling, nobody, nonessential, nugatory, paltry, piddling, potty, purportless, slight, trifling, trivial, unessential, unimportant). (various references)

Hebrew 

זעיר (a little while, diminutive, inappreciable, minuscule, petite, small, teeny, tiny, trivial, wee), חסר ערך (junk, light, paltry, picayune, pip squeak, rubbishy, trashy, two bit, twopenny half penny, vain, valueless, worthless). (various references)

Hungarian

pepecselő (trifler), nyekergetés (scrape), hiábavaló (bootless, excrescent, frustrate, futile, ineffective, inutile, nugatory, of no avail, otiose, piffle, purposeless, rope of sand, superfluous, unavailing, useless, vain), hegedülgető, hegedülõ, hegedülő, hegedűt nyekergető, hegedűn játszó, hegedű nyekergetés, haszontalan (barren, feckless, frivolous, futile, good for nothing, helpless, idle, ineffectual, ne'er do well, ne'er-do-weel, null, otiose, punk, reprobate, unavailable, unavailing, unhelpful), elbabráló, babráló. (various references)

Italian

manipolazione (adulteration, falsification, gerrymander, handling, manipulation), che suona il violino. (various references)

Manx

fidleragh. (various references)

Pig Latin

iddlingfay.(various references)

Romanian

tâmpit (addle, addle-brained, awfully, blunt, brain-hampered, chucklehead, clod, crass, daft, dense, dim, donkey, Dotty, duffer, dull, dumb, dumb bell, fool, idiot, imbecile, jay, lubber-head, lunkhead, mutt, piffling, pillock, sap, squarehead, stupid, sucker), care se ţine de fleacuri. (various references)

Russian 

ничтожный (exiguous, lamentable, measly, naught, nominal, paltry, picayune, pitiful, poxy, twopenny-halfpenny), занятый пустяками, бесполезный (abortive, bootless, fatuous, feckless, fruitless, futile, good for nothing, idle, inutile, naught, needless, nugatory, of no avail, otiose, unavailing, unhelpful, unprofitable, useless, valueless, virtueless), пустячный (baubling, fiddle-faddle, nugatory, piddling, trifling), пустой (addle, barren, blank, chaffy, do-nothing, empty, feather-brained, feckless, foppish, frivolous, frothy, gassy, gossipy, hollow, light, light-headed, null, sunken, vacant, vacuous, vapid). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian

trivijalnost (trivia, triviality), trivijalan (trivial), bezznačajnost, beznačajan (immaterial, insignificant, irrelative, irrelevant, nugatory, peddling, pointless, trifling, trivial, twopenny-halfpenny, unimportant). (various references)

Spanish

fútil (futile, inane, trifling), trivial (banal, commonplace, dismal, footling, mundane, piffling, platitudinous, sapless, trite, trivial), insignificante (inconsiderable, insignificant, small, trifling, trivial, twopenny, unimportant). (various references)

Swedish

trivial (commonplace, course, pedestrian, pettifogging, petty, trite, trivial, vulgar), obetydlig (baubling, dinky, footling, fractional, fractionary, frivolous, futile, inappreciable, inconsequent, inconsequential, inconsiderable, insignificant, little, low, lowly, mean, minute, negligible, nobody, nugatory, one horse, peddling, picayune, piddling, slight, tenuous, trivial). (various references)

Turkish

küçük (baby, bantam, child, inconsiderable, infant, infra-, junior, kid, little, micro-, mini, mini-, minor, minuscule, nano-, not healthy, one horse, paltry, peanut, petit, petty, piddling, poky, remote, slight, small, snug, tiddly, trifling, trivial, undersized, young, younger), işe yaramaz (dud, good for nothing, idle, it's no use, no good, noneffective, non-effective, null, of no avail, of no use, offcast, otiose, out, refuse, reject, unfit, unserviceable, useless, weedy), önemsiz (back burner, derisive, derisory, dinky, empty, footling, immaterial, inconsequential, inconsiderable, inconspicuous, indifferent, inessential, insignificant, jerkwater, minute, negligible, no-account, non essential, nonessential, not healthy, not worth a fig, null, of no account, of no significance, of no worth, one horse, paltry, paper, peanut, peddling, petty, picayune, picayunish, piddling, poky, potty, quotidian, scrubby, secondary, slight, small, smalltime, trifling, trivial, tuppeny, unessential, unimportant, unsubstantial, worthless, yeasty). (various references)

Ukrainian

некорисний (castaway, dud, fruitless, inutile, needless, nugatory, of no avail, of no use, otiose, unavailing, valueless, without avail), зайнятий дрібницями. (various references)

Vietnamese 

tầm thường (characterless, fiddle-faddle, inconsequential, jerkwater, picayune, platitudinarian, platitudinous, poor, prosy, soulless, straw, trivial, unideal, uninsprired), nhỏ mọn (flimsy, mingy, petty, piffling, potty), lặt vặt (fiddle-faddle, odd, peddling, petty, sundry), không đáng kể vô ích. (various references)

Misspellings

"Fiddling" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: fiddeling, Fidelina, findling, fodding, tiddling. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

-1 letter: lidding.

-2 letters: filing, idling.

-3 letters: fling.

-4 letters: ding, find, gild, ling, nidi.

-5 letters: did, dig, din, fid, fig, fil, fin, gid, gin, lid, lin, nil.

+2 letters: defilading.

+3 letters: deadlifting.

+4 letters: blindfolding, forbiddingly.